RE “there are examples of officially vetted and sanctioned problematic poorly thought-out drainage and traffic solutions around town.”
So what? There is no reason to expect that Project Cleveland would have been among them.

RE “Some developers are on first-name, back-slapping basis with planners and city officials.”
Like most organisms, cities are in the business of growth. This friendly relationship– and I don’t dispute the notion that it deserves public scrutiny– is one reason that development projects are discussed and approved in public meetings throughout the process.

RE “Developers, investors and their representatives are on the planning commission and other boards.”
Would you prefer that these boards and committees be made up entirely of know-nothings such as yourself? That would be a big help.

RE “The bureaucratic stamp makes for “official” but it doesn’t always make for objective or smart.”
It also doesn’t guarantee that a project is bad, which appears to be your contention.

RE “look at the time he spends defending development at any cost”
It doesn’t take much time at all, and it is time well spent. On the other hand, look at all the time spent by people who say untrue, ignorant and irrelevant things all over the Internet because they don’t take time when they comment.

I do not support development at any cost; I support good development at reasonable cost to the community, Project Cleveland being an example. You forget that I strenuously objected to the first development proposal for the sale barn property. (I don’t like the one that was built, either.) And that I strongly supported the streamside ordinance, which was decried as “anti-development”. I also supported the expanded sidewalks on Center Street, which sort of straddles that issue. You also forget that I chided Mr. Coody on his lack of support for the road impact fee, which would have made sprawl more manageable, even if it didn’t prevent some of the sprawl that occurred during his term. The loss of everything lovely about Mount Comfort Road, for example, is a cost of development that I could not and cannot support.

Speaking of cost, here is an as-yet-undiscussed cost that will accrue to the neighborhood. Once the University adds that property to the campus and builds student housing there, crowd and traffic control, noise complaints and so on will be the responsibility of the University police rather than the Fayetteville police. I hope that works out well for the neighborhood.

The most important reality here is that the neighborhoods surrounding the UA are going to change. Rapidly. There will be more students, many of whom do not want to live on campus, but do want to live within walking distance. To think that Cleveland St. won’t be affected is naive. Traffic questions seem to be the biggest qualm most people have, but if most of the residents are students, all those cars would remain in their parked spaces during rush hour because the people would be walking to campus. Plus, there would be, at the very least, a cafe and possibly other retail that the residents along Cleveland would almost certainly use. Imagine having a favorite coffee shop you can walk to, only blocks from the neighborhood. There are already apartments on the site, so why not have apartments plus amenities that anybody can utilize?

Leverett elementary is a challenging question. Being a former student of that great school, it is sad to me to see what’s going to happen. But it is just a matter of time before the University swallows it up (we probably won’t be able to blame private developers for that one). Fayetteville has a bad habit of closing inner city schools and sending students to the edge of town (thus increasing sprawl). The fact that the UA is attempting use eminent domain to claim right to the property on which Project Cleveland was supposed to be built to me proves the point. And the UA doesn’t want to buy the land just to have a parking lot ad infinitum. It’s either speculation or the beginning of a plan to build something, probably more dorms. If you think the UA will build something as progressive as Project Cleveland, then look at the rest of the university development. I would beg to differ.

Development is happening people. The area will get more dense. The UA wants to grow. A plan to concentrate students in the areas surrounding campus, thereby creating a type of university district, would result in fewer cars on the roads in the long run. If students must continue to live in houses more than a mile away from campus, cars will just keep coming.

The only people that seem to be opposed to it were the immediate neighbors even thought the project would improve many of the issues that they were complaining about. I suspect there is something else at play here. Perhaps someone who has a vested interest in another student housing project that won’t be nearly as desirable or high quality and resents the competition? I wonder who that could be that would also yield enough power to significantly influence the University? Perhaps it was one of the plaintiffs in this frivolous lawsuit filed against the city then withdrawn after city staff spent significant time and effort compiling the appropriate documentation to respond to the claim. It’s almost like they wanted to punish the City for not voting how they wanted so they wasted our tax dollars with their hissy fit.

There you go again. Minority objections to a project that could bring problems (even if bringing profit, entertainment, or convenience to another group) are just tantrum or delusion. “The reality is” that there are examples of officially vetted and sanctioned problematic poorly thought-out drainage and traffic solutions around town. In many cases of proposed development you’ve got the neighborhood people immediately affected, the developers (investors, etc.), and the planners. Some developers are on first-name, back-slapping basis with planners and city officials. Developers, investors and their representatives are on the planning commission and other boards. The bureaucratic stamp makes for “official” but it doesn’t always make for objective or smart.

RE “Sounds like you’ve got quite the list of justifications for this project.”
Thank you. They must be pretty good, as neither you nor anybody else has been able to refute them, despite claims of “buy off” and ” lack of abiding by regulations”. “Not in my back yard” is never sufficient on its own to halt progress, and apparently nothing else of any persuasive value was offered.

RE “The problems with traffic, drainage and an elementary school across the street should have immediately stopped this project.”
Apparently not. The engineers were satisfied with the streets (which had to meed federal standards for emergency access) and the drainage (which was addressed even outside the confines of the site), and– as students would likely have lived in the apartments, traffic affecting Leverett School during school hours would have been minimized. Those issues were addressed by the developers of Project Cleveland, and your dissatisfaction is irrelevant. Now that the University has muscled in, the neighborhood will end up with traffic and drainage problems, and the in-and-out nature of the traffic throughout the day will have a greater impact on the school. And eventually the neighborhood will end up with a dorm or apartment complex on the site.

You can stamp your feet and give your wishful opinions all you like, but the reality is, the project was submitted, negotiated, vetted, found compliant with the master plan, and approved. That is the reality, and, as I am more attuned to this reality than you are, I believe I also am more firmly seated on my rocker than you are on yours– at least where this matter is concerned.

RE “Some citizens think that keeping older established residential neighborhoods is in the interest of the entire city.”
Believe it or not, I agree with them. I helped start a neighborhood association in Wichita, and served on one of the District Advisory Boards there, for that very reason. However, it was up to these citizens to convince others of the value of their belief in regard to their own neighborhood. Given the existing encroachments on the neighborhood, and the context of large, multi-story housing, and– face it– the relative commonness of that type of neighborhood, they apparently were not able to do that.

RE “If you’re going to put a ‘box’ around the town, why not put one around the University, which seems to be turning into a rival town all its own.”
Apples and oranges, but: a private development would have accomplished part of that goal, but the neighborhood screwed up the opportunity by bringing a suit against the developers. My congratulations to them.

“The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.” The University tricked the neighborhood into living with a new, unknown devil.

Hold up there. Now you’re judging who represents the entire city and who doesn’t. How do you figure that the residents who resisted development had bad, dismissable arguments, while the developers and urban plannerati (not all of them necessarily even “citizens”) had the good ideas that were worth a listen? Some citizens think that keeping older established residential neighborhoods is in the interest of the entire city.

If you’re going to put a “box” around the town, why not put one around the University, which seems to be turning into a rival town all its own.

The fact that the University plans to install a parking lot on this site for the short term– a lot that will not be particularly convenient for most students, as it is about as far from academic buildings as they could build one– is practically a guarantee that there will be a dorm on that site in the future.